Contents

Detailed synopsis

Having your energy drained changes your paint job.

Somewhere, an energy creature begins feeding off other forms of energy--slowly, at first. Then his creator gives him an Energon cube. The creature grows and spreads out into the universe. Soon, it attacks Cybertron. The Autobots attack it, but it simply drains their energy from them. The creature's creator is pleased with him, saying he's done better than his predecessor, Unicron.

Most of the departed Transformers are riding Trypticon. Naturally, tempers flare after Headstrong picks a fight with the Dinobots by insulting Grimlock, so Sludge suggests they stomp him. The Preds stick with their teammate and fight the Dinobots, and the Terrorcons decide to fight everyone. At Sky Lynx's suggestion, Trypticon shakes himself and causes his passengers to stop fighting. They arrive on an ancient planet near the center of the galaxy. After touching down, Sky Lynx assumes command of the group, despite the objections of Razorclaw and Hun-Gurrr. Finding a cave, they encounter a strange entity. He explains that he summoned the Primitives, all animal-based Transformers, to come to fight Tornedron, the energy being who was created by Primacron. The entity, who was once Primacron's assistant, explains how Primacron created Unicron but was nearly destroyed by his creation. After Unicron's defeat, Primacron created Tornedron as a replacement. Primacron's assistant hopes that the Primitives' simple instincts will allow them to defeat Primacon's complex plans.

Ptooie

Suddenly, Tornedron arrives and drains Trypticon of his energy. Trypticon crashes, and Grimlock is believed destroyed. Sky Lynx attacks, only to have his energy drained as well. Slag leads the Dinobots in retreat, while the other Primitives split up, believing that Tornedron can't track them all down if they are all separated. Unfortunately, Tornedron separates into four parts to track them down. He easily dispatches the Mini-Cassettes, chewing on Ratbat in the process. Headstrong declares that it would be better to fight and die, and the Predacons form Predaking. Their energy is sucked away as well. The Terrorcons try to fight back, but are also drained. The Dinobots ambush Tornedron, but they too are dispatched. Unknown to Tornedron and Primacron, however, Grimlock has survived, and he follows them.

Two scoops of raisins

At his base, Primacron is having trouble controlling Tornedron. Tornedron declares that he intends to feed on Primacron, and that all of Primacron's failsafes have failed. Grimlock breaks into Primacron's lab to find that Primacron is a tiny little alien thing. Grimlock orders Primacron to reverse his damage, but Primacron declares that he's tried everything. Grimlock fixes things easily: He throws the reverse switch, which reverses Tornedron's energy polarity, restoring the energy to the drained Transformers and planets. In celebration, Grimlock destroys Primacron's lab, declaring it the smartest thing he's ever done.

—Primacron's reaction to Grimlock's celebratory destruction of his lab.

Other Notes

Where am I from?

The art style in this episode is very different from all others in the Generation One series, with stylized "anime-like" character models and proportions. In fact, the character models for this episode are based on the Studio Ox designs rather than the standard animation models used for the other episodes of the series. It is widely believed that this lone episode was animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, though little evidence has been found to confirm this.

In Japanese continuity, the scene where the Primitives encounter the Oracle is set in the past; apparently, the Primitives arrived there via time travel. This is done to accommodate the idea that the Oracle later evolved into Vector Sigma and later Primus. Yeah, gotta love the Japanese.

Animation and/or technical glitches

When the Dinobots are being summoned, Sludge is referred to as Sweep. Actually, according to the script, Sweep 6 is given a line indicating he can hear the call too, after the Oracle calls for Sweep. The line is Sweep #6: "It's coming -- from "up there"!" This would seem to indicate that Donald F. Glut indeed intended to mention Sweep, omitted Sludge's name by mistake, and actually considered the Sweep to be a "primitive" (perhaps due to most of the Sweeps being recycled Insecticons). It is highly unlikely that the writer, who wrote a large number of Dinobot-related episodes, would mistakenly call Sludge "Sweep". When the line "It's coming from up there!" is uttered in the cartoon, even though the camera is focused on Swoop, it's not Swoop's voice, nor any other Dinobot's. The voice matches Sweep 6's voice from the earlier identifying line. Additionally, when Galvatron chases after his deserters, only Cyclonus and Soundwave remain with him.

Continuity errors

When summoning the Primitives, they forgot all about the Insecticons, and the cassettes Laserbeak and Buzzsaw! Instead, Soundwave unleashes two new cassette Decepticons: Slugfest and Overkill - who are then never seen again. Gee. This didn't stop TV Magazine from proudly displaying them as if they were the stars of the episode though.

What Insecticons? Most of them were turned into Sweeps! Hey, maybe that's why Oracle called for Sweep...

Transformers references

This episode marks the last appearance of the Dinobots, Trypticon, Ravage, and Jazz in the western cartoon. Bummer. Especially since Jazz hasn't had a bigger part after the movie.

Real-world references

None

Notes

Me Grimlock like Predacons and Terrorcons Cajun style

Unicron's origin is a bit, well, random.

When Grimlock uses his flame breath on the Predacons and Terrorcons, they start to cough - because that's what you do when you're being hit with fire reaching several hundred degrees.

This episode seems to resolidify the Dinobots' position as freakishly powerful (which took a beating in Season 3), as Grimlock alone seems to be a match for three Terrorcons and two Predacons, and the only Autobot sent flying is Swoop (ironic), who takes a blast to the chest early on. Also, the Dinobots seem to handle Tornedron with the most finesse.

Neither the Sharkticons, the Allicons or the Lipoles joined the Primitives.

This episode marks the first, last and very brief appearance of Overkill and Slugfest.

This episode mainly takes place amongst Transformers with animal alternate modes. A further series also focuses on Transformers with animal alternate modes.

Keywords

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